Whilst in no way condoning the death threats by any group, I think there may be more behind the threats than the fact that she is an Amerian.

I think the fact that Madonna and her family practice Kaballah - a form of Judaism - and the fact that she has convinced some of her friends to join the pro-Israel religion - MAY have something to do with the death threats.

I think the fact that Madonna and her family practice Kaballah - a form of Judaism - and the fact that she has convinced some of her friends to join the pro-Israel religion - MAY have something to do with the death threats.

So the Palestinians want to kill anyone who supports Israel? And their children?

And this surprises you how?

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Randal Smith alias Smitty the KidWielder of the Six-String Claymore!

"We have enough Youth, how about a Fountain of Smart?""When the going gets tough, the smart go fishing!"

My apologies if I offended you, Catriona. It was not my intention to imply that you condoned terrorism, or threats of violence. And I do agree with you that it is simplistic. But maybe it is just that simple. I think that targeting Americans is exactly what the terrorists are doing. Remember Nick Berg? Madonna makes headlines because she's a star. Would she have received these threats if she were French? Or Russian? Maybe. Maybe not.

In any case, I agree with you that threats against women and children (especially children) are outrageous and reprehensible.

I also noticed that Madonna has made a statement saying she received no such threats. So. . .I guess we simply wait and see.

Well, if the woman didn't receive any death threats, is she what we in the UK call a 'gutless wonder' for cancelling her performances in a country whose (slightly off-centre) religion she is supposed to follow?

Many Americans still believe that the terrorist threat will end once Al-Qaeda is neutralized. But in reality, the roots of today's war on terror lie in the creation not of Al-Qaeda, but of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt by Hassan Al-Banna in 1928. Al-Banna and the Brotherhood considered Islam to have an essential political and social character that needed to be reasserted in the face of the societal ills that had come to the Islamic world with secularism. Al-Banna's vision was in perfect accord with that of classical Muslim scholars such as Ibn Khaldun, who taught in the fourteenth century that "in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force." According to historian Brynjar Lia, "Quoting the Qur'anic verse 'And fight them till sedition is no more, and the faith is God's' [Sura 2:193], the Muslim Brothers urged their fellow Muslims to restore the bygone greatness of Islam and to re-establish an Islamic empire. Sometimes they even called for the restoration of 'former Islamic colonies' in Andalus (Spain), southern Italy, Sicily, the Balkans and the Mediterranean islands."

One of the Muslim Brotherhood's principal children is the terrorist group Hamas, which identifies itself in its Charter as "one of the wings of the Muslim Brothers in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a world organization, the largest Islamic Movement in the modern era.

Jihad is a central duty of every Muslim. Modern Muslim theologians have spoken of many things as jihads: defending the faith from critics, supporting its growth and defense financially, even migrating to non-Muslim lands for the purpose of spreading Islam. But violent jihad is a constant of Islamic history. Many passages of the Qur'an and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad are used by radical Muslims today to justify their actions and gain new recruits. No major Muslim group has ever repudiated the doctrines of armed jihad. The theology of jihad, which denies unbelievers equality of human rights and dignity, is available today for anyone with the will and means to bring it to life.

Jimmy Carter's weak policies made the Ayatollah Khomeini's triumph possible, but Khomeini himself, a Shi'ite who had no involvement in the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, was absolutely clear: "Islam," he declared, "makes it incumbent on all adult males . . . to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world."

The "Verse of the Sword": "Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is forgiving, merciful" (Sura 9:5).

The Brotherhood's ongoing involvement in violence (combined with American unwillingness to acknowledge how compelling the radical vision of Islam is to Muslims) is just more evidence that today's fixation with Al-Qaeda could be dangerously misleading. It also shows that despite Abu Ghraib and Al-Sadr, the Iraq war, in light of the damage it has done to this global Islamic terror network, has nonetheless been a success.

The West is facing a concerted effort by radical Muslims, most of whom are ignored by the Western media, to destroy the West and bring it forcibly into the Islamic world. That effort goes under the general title of jihad - or also World War 3.

Anyone remember Jose Padilla (or what we in the south like to call 'Osama bin Lopez')? He's the American citizen who has been detained by the government for the last two years. Well, we now know a little more about old Jose.

He sought to blow up hotels and apartment buildings in the U.S. and set off a nuclear "dirty bomb." Nice guy. Padilla, along with an Al-Qaeda accomplice, planned to find apartment buildings supplied with natural gas. They were then going to rent two apartments, seal them off, turn on the gas, then set timers to blow the buildings up for a nice little terrorist attack.

Padilla had wanted to set off a nuclear dirty bomb, but his handlers didn't think that was feasible, so Al-Qaeda leaders wanted him to focus on his apartment building plot.

How many Jose Padillas are in the USA right now? How many are in the UK?

The recent terrorist murders of Westerners in Saudi Arabia has all the hallmarks of the global war waged by al-Qa'ida and its sympathisers.

Attack the Western presence in Saudi Arabia to force the departure of foreign experts. Shake the regime - and thus bring Osama bin Laden's minions one step closer to realising the Islamist goal of a Middle East caliphate. With much of the world's oil under the fundamentalists' control, they could strangle the global economy while obtaining the type of weapons that can blackmail the West, destroy Israel and implement a new dark ages in the Middle East.

We can learn much from this most recent abhorrent slaughter. Once more, the terrorists are politically sophisticated. They chose the time of their attack to coincide with the kingdom's announcement that it would increase oil production to prevent a slowdown of the world economy, now reeling under dramatic fuel price spikes. Appeasement was the Spanish response to the bombing in Madrid; in the Persian Gulf, will we see cutbacks in pumping in exchange for promised calm - a de facto turning over of the daily rate of petroleum production to al-Qa'ida's dictates?

By cutting and running in Iraq, the Spaniards may think they bought time, but all that capitulation did was to direct the emboldened killers elsewhere for a time. Blackmail, to work after all, must at least provide the illusion to the cowered that it brings safety for the moment.

Inspectors had found multiple traces of 36% enriched uranium, which has no civilian use and Iran has not offered a satisfactory explanation.

Iran had also lied about having a sophisticated P-2 uranium enrichment program of the kind peddled by Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan.

Iran has not been able to explain experiments with polonium-210, a radioactive element primarily useful as a bomb trigger.

Remember that Iran is a petroleum-rich country that doesn't need nuclear power and whose former president has declared that "the world of Islam" should acquire the bomb so it can threaten the existence of Israel and thwart American "colonialism" in the Middle East. On Saturday, AP quoted Iran's foreign minister as declaring that Iran "has to be recognized by the international community as a member of the nuclear club. This is an irreversible path." All of this has finally provoked even the U.S. State Department to declare that Iran's nuclear activities "are in no way peaceful" and "specifically designed to create weapons."

Last year the U.S. deferred to the Europeans as they brokered an inspection agreement with Iran that the mullahs have since violated with impunity. In other words, the "multilateral" diplomatic path is failing (wow, doesn't that sound strangly familiar?).

History will not look kindly on the leaders, US or others, who let Iran get the bomb on their watch.

So this means we invaded the wrong middle-eastern country? Maybe we should have stayed home and let them use their wmds and wids on each other? They have been fighting each other for thousands of years anyway.

Al-Qaeda posted a video online yesterday of Paul Johnson, a man who works for Lockheed-Martin in Saudi Arabia. He was apparently taken hostage by these Islamic psychos on Saturday. The video shows the man blindfolded. Poor guy was just trying to earn a living.

So what are their demands? They are threatening to kill him within 72 hours unless the Saudi government releases some terrorists from a couple prisons. A Saudi government spokesman says it is unlikely their demands will be met because the Kingdom has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists. And so it goes. Things don't look too good for Mr. Johnson. Very sad.

Those of you out there that oppose the war on terror, that are supporting Kerry because you think Islamic terrorism is a law enforcement problem, take a good look. This is what we have to look forward to if Al-Qaeda is not destroyed. Not negotiated with, not appeased, not minimized, but completely destroyed.

Get used to these images and these reports. As Communism was in the 50's and 60's, so is Islamic terrorism today. At least Khrushchev never kidnapped and sawed the heads off of civilians.

Ghazi al-Talabani, the security chief for Iraq's Northern Oil Company, was killed today when gunmen opened fire on his car as he left for work. This was apparently the work of terrorists (the media calls them 'insurgents', Michael Moore calls them 'freedom fighters'). But none of this should come as a surprise.

The Islamic terrorists who do not want self-rule for the Iraqis are doing their best to derail the June 30th transfer of power. This was expected. The enemies of freedom don't like what is happening in Iraq. They see their desire for a totalitarian theocracy slipping away as Iraq moves toward self-rule, and they can't stand it. They want an Islamic dictatorship.

The handover is two weeks away. Get ready for more of this. On June 30 a flower will be planted in the desert, and it has the chance to become an oasis.

There is no reason to believe that the violence on the part of Hussein's folks will change after the bogus "handover" of power to a puppet government. The gorilla warfare we are seeing is exactly what Hussein warned the US would happen before we invaded them. There is no reason to assume they will let up.